Black House

He takes the bottle of Mercurochrome, then scans the prescription bottles on the shelf above. There aren’t many. He grabs the one on the far left. Sonata, French Landing Pharmacy, one capsule at bedtime, do not use more than four nights in a row, prescribing physician Patrick J. Skarda, M.D.

Fred can’t see the entire bed in the medicine-cabinet mirror, but he can see the foot of it . . . and one of Judy’s feet, as well. Still on the bed. Good, good. He shakes out one of the Sonatas, then dumps their toothbrushes out of the glass — he has no intention of going all the way downstairs for a clean glass, does not want to leave her alone that long.

He fills the glass, then goes back into the bedroom with the water, the pill, and the bottle of Mercurochrome. Her eyes are shut. She is breathing so slowly that he has to put one hand on her chest to make sure she’s breathing at all.

He looks at the sleeping pill, debates, then gives her a shake. "Judy! Jude! Wake up a little, hon. Just long enough to take a pill, okay?"

She doesn’t even mutter, and Fred sets the Sonata aside. It won’t be necessary after all. He feels some faint optimism at how fast she’s fallen asleep and how deep she has gone. It’s as if some vile sac has popped, discharged its poison, left her weak and tired but possibly okay again. Could that be? Fred doesn’t know, but he’s positive that she isn’t just shamming sleep. All of Judy’s current woes began with insomnia, and the insomnia has been the one constant throughout. Although she’s only been exhibiting distressing symptoms for a couple of months — talking to herself and doing that odd and rather disgusting thing with her tongue, to mention only a couple of items — she hasn’t been sleeping well since January. Hence the Sonata. Now it seems that she has finally tipped over. And is it too much to hope that when she wakes from a normal sleep she’ll be her old normal self again? That her worries about her son’s safety during the summer of the Fisherman have forced her to some sort of climax? Maybe, maybe not . . . but at least it has given Fred some time to think about what he should do next, and he had better use it well. One thing seems to him beyond argument: if Ty is here when his mother wakes up, Ty is going to have a much happier mother. The immediate question is how to locate Tyler as soon as possible.

His first thought is to call the homes of Ty’s friends. It would be easy; those numbers are posted on the fridge, printed in Judy’s neat back-slanting hand, along with the numbers of the fire department, the police department (including Dale Gilbertson’s private number; he’s an old friend), and French Landing Rescue. But it takes Fred only a moment to realize what a bad idea this is. Ebbie’s mother is dead and his father is an unpleasant moron — Fred met him just once, and once is more than enough. Fred doesn’t much like his wife labeling some people "low-raters" (Who do you think you are, he asked her once, Queen of the doggone Realm?), but in the case of Pete Wexler, the shoe fits. He won’t have any idea of where the boys are today and won’t care.

Mrs. Metzger and Ellen Renniker might, but having once been a boy on summer vacation himself — the whole world laid at your feet and at least two thousand places to go — Fred doubts it like hell. There’s a chance the boys might be eating lunch (it’s getting to be that time) at the Metzgers’ or Rennikers’, but is that slight chance worth scaring the hell out of two women? Because the killer will be the first thing they think of, just as sure as God made little fishes . . . and fishermen to catch ’em.

Once more sitting on the bed beside his wife, Fred feels his first real tingle of apprehension on his son’s behalf and dismisses it brusquely. This is no time to give in to the heebie-jeebies. He has to remember that his wife’s mental problems and his son’s safety are not linked — except in her mind. His job is to present Ty, front and center and all squared away, thus proving her fears groundless.

Fred looks at the clock on his side of the bed and sees that it’s quarter past eleven. How the time flies when you’re having fun, he thinks. Beside him, Judy utters a single gaspy snore. It’s a small sound, really quite ladylike, but Fred jumps anyway. How she scared him when he first saw her in Ty’s room! He’s still scared.

Ty and his friends may come here for lunch. Judy says they often do because the Metzgers don’t have much to eat and Mrs. Renniker usually serves what the boys call "goop," a mystery dish consisting of noodles and some gray meat. Judy makes them Campbell’s soup and baloney sandwiches, stuff they like. But Ty has money enough to treat them all to McDonald’s out by the little mall on the north side, or they could go into Sonny’s Cruisin’ Restaurant, a cheap diner with a cheesy fifties ambience. And Ty isn’t averse to treating. He’s a generous boy.

"I’ll wait until lunch," he murmurs, completely unaware that he is talking as well as thinking. Certainly he doesn’t disturb Judy; she has gone deep. "Then — "

Then what? He doesn’t know, exactly.

He goes downstairs, kicks the Mr. Coffee back into gear, and calls work. He asks Ina to tell Ted Goltz he’ll be out the rest of the day — Judy’s sick. The flu, he tells her. Throwing up and everything. He runs down a list of people he was expecting to see that day and tells her to speak to Otto Eisman about handling them. Otto will be on that like white on rice.

An idea occurs to him while he’s talking to her, and when he’s done, he calls the Metzgers’ and Rennikers’ after all. At the Metzgers’ he gets an answering machine and hangs up without leaving a message. Ellen Renniker, however, picks up on the second ring. Sounding casual and cheerful — it comes naturally, he’s a hell of a salesman — he asks her to have Ty call home if the boys show up there for lunch. Fred says he has something to tell his son, making it sound like something good. Ellen says she will, but adds that T.J. had four or five dollars burning a hole in his jeans when he left the house that morning, and she doesn’t expect to see him until suppertime.